CHAPTER 9
RISING ABOVE AND BEYOND
Izuku did not feel like talking to Kacchan on the first day at the new school.
In fact, he had hoped he wouldn't see Kacchan at all, for a few days at least, and the argumentative samurai-commissar fellow too if he could help it. The latter, because he frightened him plain and simple. The former, because now that he had calmed down Izuku could not shake the feeling that his friendship with his only real childhood friend had ended, it was all his fault, and he was an inch from falling out of the mindset of a hero to top it off.
Obviously the universe had other plans. Hardly had he stepped into the classroom when their two voices started booming at each other, drowning out all other sounds – and it was a classroom without a teacher, mind!
"Want to fight, you side-character shithead?" growled Kacchan. He was crossing his arm, and now his right feet stamped against the table's surface; he leaned on his knee, and there were sparks coming from his fingertips.
What was it all about, anyway? Kacchan was sitting the way he always did in the old school: both feet on the table. The other fellow was going on a small lecture on how it wasn't proper hero behavior, how it was disrespectful and not becoming of hero-candidates, how it was their responsibility to uphold society's standard of morals, et cetera... which, to be honest, Izuku found himself agreeing wholeheartedly.
No, no, no, there was no way Izuku could do anything at all. With great difficulty he drowned his many inner voice with a quiet mumble about random thing: how the sky was so blue, the hallway so long, the classroom door gigantic yet the classroom tiny, the tables and chairs so new and shiny... how awesome U.A. was.
And then he looked around the classroom. His face brightened, the mumbling stopped: Ochako was in his class.
"Hey, hey, Midoriya!" she exclaimed, waved her hand and patted on the empty space behind her; and at once Izuku knew where he would be sitting for the rest of the year.
He dropped his bag on the chair. "Hi," he said, and surprised himself at how natural he sounded now. Talking to a girl, at the end of the day, wasn't half as hard as most things he had done between this time last year and now. Like a famous writer in the West once wrote: "There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other", a one-hundred-meter tall robot was quite up there in the order of friend-making business.
Now he cocked his head back and glanced at the scene Kacchan was making. He was genuinely anxious, too, because deep down Izuku could not think of Kacchan as anything other than an old friend.
"Have they been at it for long?" he asked, his brow twitching. "This seems hardly... proper?"
"Eh, ha, ha," went Ochako, mockingly looking at the ceiling. "Well, of course it isn't, but not that... unexpected, you know?"
She looked around the classroom, as did Izuku. His new classmates were clumped around in small groups doing their own share of chatting paying the two hotheads little heed. As if two students baring teeth at each other was a perfectly normal part of teenage life. Then again, perhaps it actually was, and it was only Izuku who never knew because of how secluded he was most of the time...
"Hey, just in case you forgot," she said, "we're having lunch together today!"
Something went ting in Izuku's head, and suddenly Kacchan about to literally explode didn't seem so pertinent any more. "Eh?"
"Hatsume said she's paying, remember?" Her cheeks puffed. "Don't tell me you've forgotten!"
Izuku blinked once, then twice, then thrice. And then his mind wandered to the notes Bilbo had left him – specifically, that part pertaining to "having tea with two young ladies" he had not read (because that fallout with Kacchan had occupied most of his thoughts over the past few). Oh no, was all he could remember thinking, and at once he began mumbling.
As per usual Izuku had scant idea what his mouth was motoring off. Unlike usual, he found himself at the receiving end of a dozen eyeballs before he knew what hit him.
First among the multitude, of course, was that commissar-samurai who wore his seriousness like a medal of honor. "Oh! It's you, at the exam!" He broke off the argument and stuck his hand out before Izuku, half-robotic and half ceremonial-like. "Iida Tenya, formerly of Soumei, very honored to make your acquaintance!"
If Izuku was like a kettle his voice was like a wildfire making it boil over. He blinked and felt the muscles on his face thrumming. "W-who, me?" he said. "Ah! Y-yeah, well, Midoriya Izuku, I'm in your care from now on!" He quickly wiped the sweat off his forehead.
Iida's glasses were glinting in the light. "Midoriya, is it? Not only in combat, in choosing partner, in teamwork... but in the spirit of heroism your performance was top-notch!" he said. "Not a one in the exam thought to stop and save a fellow examiner in need, except you and your team!"
Then all of a sudden his shoulder dropped just a little "But, uh, about that infraction, I realized you could have been top of the class, if not for that-"
Izuku's shoulder jerked. Here it comes, here it comes...
"Oh, I apologize if that's something I shouldn't have asked!" Iida gave a deep, very angular bow. "It just is hardly becoming of U.A. to mete out infractions for someone who's clearly done nothing wrong and whose heroics is entirely admirable! Have you by any chance filed a complaint to the school?"
Izuku gulped. "Uh... no, well..." He scratched his head. "There's a reason, you see-"
He looked to the seat in front of him for aid, and Ochako answered. "The school didn't like his trashing an arm to save people," she said. "Obviously."
"Is that true, Midoriya?" exclaimed Iida. "All the more reason to file a complaint! It simply wouldn't do for a school of heroics to penalize acts of heroism!"
"Er, well, I... I'm fine with it, really," Izuku said. "It isn't like I got disqualified for the infraction..."
He had half-expected Kacchan to bust in and say something hurtful, as was his wont. But today Kacchan said nothing. He only glared, and lift the corner of his lips in an angle and creasing his forehead. Except for that he was probably incredibly angry, his face betrayed no further thought. There were times to find out that quietly angry Kacchan was even scarier than loud, exploding, swearing Kacchan, and the first day at the new school was not exactly one of them.
As it happened, Midoriya's brief moment of being the center of attention lasted for all of a minute.
"If you're hunting for buddies, do it elsewhere."
"A-are you sure this is it?"
Izuku was not the only one so confused, and who could blame him? His homeroom teacher had turned out to be a – with all due respect – not very well-dressed or well-spoken man, who showed up at the classroom in his sleeping bag. Mr. Aizawa had wasted no time shoving all twenty of them down the so-called P.E. field, and now they were standing in front of said field...
If you could call it a field , anyway.
For starters, it was hardly a stretch of green grass and red running tracks. No, the monstrosity before them was more like a jungle of concrete arranged willy-nilly across the landscape, like a tetris game went wrong. An unbroken wall was running across the width of the yard; its lowest stretch well twice as high as Izuku was tall and thick enough for him to comfortably walk on its top. In the distance behind there were visible many columns, thick and thin, square and round, the lowest no shorter than ten meters, the highest well close to actual high-rises.
One look at the man standing next to Mr. Aizawa was all Izuku needed to connect the dot. The biggest hint was that he looked not like a man at all, but rather a block of humanoid concrete, square and angular from top to toe.
"That's Cementoss, the urban terraforming specialist!" Izuku exclaimed. "Wow, I had no idea he's teaching at U.A.!"
Izuku's mumbling this time was only brought to a close due to a sharp gaze from said 'terraforming specialist'.
"Hope this is to your taste, Aizawa," he said. "Not too hard, not too soft, and some puzzles and surprises inside, too."
"That's all I need," said Mr. Aizawa, knuckling the nearest section wall segment.
Then he flipped around, leaning against said wall. "I want to see everyone cross the obstacle course in ten minutes," he said, raising a disc-shaped object vaguely resembling a bleeping archery target. "Find these plates, on those columns up there-" He pointed at the highest peaks in the mountain of concrete, "-and touch it or destroy it."
Izuku could hear a host of different sounds about him: ohs and ahs and wows, for the most parts. There were outliers too: "So manly!", "Time to rend", "Hmph", or, like Kacchan, quietly smirking.
It was, in hindsight, not the wisest of reactions; for Mr. Aizawa was now looking down the rank thanks to his considerable height. His bloodshot eyes were now a mite fiercer: his brows were upturned and sterner than it was before.
"Don't be too comfortable," he said. "Those who arrive last, or contribute nothing to the class effort, will be judged to be without potential." His gaze was sharp and cold like a sword. "And expelled."
At once the chorus died down, in its place eyes staring around, knuckles cracking, and more "Hmph".
Mr. Aizawa was undaunted. "If it helps, the U.A. Sports Festival takes a similar format," he said. "Now get to work."
Then he walked off the field. "Ten minutes starts... now."
There was no direct path between them and Mr. Aizawa's targets, save, perhaps, running out of the field all the way round several building blocks, and even then Izuku doubted Mr. Aizawa would think very well of the student who thought themselves clever that way.
We have to carve our own way.
At any rate, the word "expel" was still ringing hard in Izuku's head when Kacchan growled and charged the lowest wall section..
"Small fries!" he cried. "DIE, CONCRETE, DIE!"
Blam went his palm, and then blam and blam again: a dent the size of a small kid was soon opening up, angry cracks spreading from its edge along the wall segment's length and height. Kacchan's hair was covered in a thin sheen of dust, as was his P.E. uniform. His lips were curved in such a way that Izuku would pity the wall, inanimate object though it was.
Then another classmate leaped forth. His hair was spiky, like one of those stereotypical manga characters, and flaming red. "Need a hand?" he said. As if on a cue, his muscles turned knotty and jagged, like a bar of poorly-hammered metal, or a slab of granite crudely hewn.
"Outta my way, shitty hair!"
So said Kacchan, but he did shift ever so slightly to one side. Spiky-redhead jumped in, and started hurling one punch after another at the foundation. When the chorus of "Shine shine shine!" and "Ora ora ora!" died down, whatever was left of the wall had shattered and crumbled before iron fists and explosions.
Kacchan rushed through the opening without so much as a single "Thank you".
On the other end of the wall, the rest were figuring things their own way. The tallest girl in the class was biting her lip: from the palm of her hand slowly materialized what looked like a shiny step-ladder. Another girl, short and froggy in expression, approached the wall with back hunched. She leaned backwards, then from her mouth lashed an impossibly long tongue; she vaulted over the wall propelled by both legs and tongue with surprising ease. Another girl with earphone jacks for earlobes had just now pierced the wall with said jacks; and Izuku could hear – no, feel a very low grumbling sound fanning out from the point of contact.
"Guys!" she exclaimed. "Some part of the wall is not as solid as it seems!" She pointed at a spot at the base of the highest segment.
"Leave it to me," said red-and-white; flicking his arm and sending a wave of ice at the spot. Hardly ten seconds had passed when the wall creaked, cracked and then imploded, much like an empty glass bottle in a freezer.
Then thick-lipped, muscular-looking fellow from behind them emptied a packet of what looked like tea sugar into his mouth. He howled, rushed forth, and bowled through the half-broken wall; it went down like a house of card.
Red-and-white run through after him – after securing the upper arc of the breach with yet another layer of ice. On the ground behind them were, mysteriously, three sets of dust-covered footsteps.
Now the ponytailed girl had finished creating the stepladder. Up she climbed, and on the top of the wall created a very large rubber cushion. She dropped it down the other side of the wall, and then threw herself down after it. After her ran the shortest boy in the class – a hobbit in size with a tuft of purple balls for hairs.
Before Izuku could properly think anything worthwhile, he'd found his wrist locked by a soft yet impossibly strong grip. "Let's go, Midoriya!" shouted Ochako – because who else could it be?
"B-but then we'd still have contributed nothing, right?" said Izuku.
"Well the obstacle course isn't over yet, is it?" She smiled and winked. "We'll think of something next part, alright?" Then she winked and dragged him stumbling through the opening red-and-white had created.
Now the way had been cut off by a trench some three meters deep and a dozen wide. It looked benign enough, for there was no spikes or traps of any kind at the bottom. Jumping down, run across and climb back up at the other side, however, was nothing to scoff at. That other side was as smooth as concrete went without any place for hands of feet to catch into, and three meter was not something you could overcome without the right quirk.
With a hmph Kacchan set to work. He held his hands out aiming at the ground, and hmph he went again. There was a large explosion sending gravel and crushed mortar everywhere, and at the same time tossing him twenty feet into the air. Just as he was about to his the ground, he held out his palms once more. The second boom hurled him over the remaining half of the trench and through to the other side.
Kacchan was the first and last person to cross the trench so effortlessly. The last explosion he set up was right noisy... and it wasn't due to Kacchan at all.
Before Izuku's eyes the solid ground began to crack, crack and crack. In seconds the creases and crevices had deepened and widened and spread to all corners of the trench.
"Uh oh," went Ochako.
From under the cracks a dense purple gas seeped out, first in small quantities and barely visible, yet in ten seconds flat it had thickened like a cloud hovering over the trench.
"Uh oh," went the object-creator.
The gas cloud didn't rise very high, but instead clung stubbornly to the bowel of the trench, daring the foolhardy to jump into it. The purple haze obscured a good part of the crevice, and suddenly jumping down no longer seemed very plausible – or very wise.
"Boys and girls, watch yourself now!"
Izuku looked up: his's eyes weren't so good any more, but who could mistake Present Mic's... quirky voice and distinct hairstyle? There he was standing on top of the tall round tower on the other side of the divide, shouting and gesturing at the students like the born master-of-ceremony he was, immersed in his impromptu live commentary.
"This thing's a kick to the head – a round of applause to our very own Ms. Midnight, please! Try one whiff, and bye bye consciousness, hello sweet dream! Well, for all of ten minutes, that is!"
"Midnight? The R-18 heroine?" Izuku said. "I see, so that's sleeping gas! Midnight's gas only work through inhalation, everyone! Don't breathe in the thing and we should be fine!"
Izuku's shout earned a couple of nods from his classmates: at any rate clever folk wouldn't want to wade through that substance; not without a mask of some sort and certainly if not pushed.
Spiky Redhead was not who you would call 'clever folk'. He huffed, drew in a gigantic breath, and threw himself down the bottom. He landed like a wrecking ball. "Banzai!" he cried.
He staggered, flailed around, and dropped unconscious within five seconds.
"K-Kirishima!"
Present Mic was roaring. "Oh boy oh boy, we have our first victim! Not very smart now are you? Now don't you go worry about him, boy's probably having the dream of his life like a hot date with a beau or something!"
Everyone was at least blanching a little.
Everyone, except red-and-white.
He leaped too, but not into the trench. From his palm he directed a gout of ice at the purple cloud below, and like an ice-powered rocket jetted off. Not a single wisp of violet touched his ice-sheathed body as he glided above the trench on the frozen bridge of his own making.
He landed on the other side, light as a professional gymnast.
Now the hobbitish fellow with purple balls for hair snapped his thumb. "Let's look cool," he said. Pop went the purple balls into his hand; he stuck them to the bridge of ice one after the other and inched forward, one arm length after another.
"I can do better, kero."
The frog girl stood at the edge for a couple seconds. Then, with a whip of her tongue, she performed what a frog did best: leap great distances. She landed next to the opposite end of the ice bridge long before purple-ball even reached the halfway point. She was very quickly followed by a wiry-looking fellow whose elbows were in the shape of tape rolls: he merely shot a long string of cellophane at the highest column in the distance and swung across.
"Already done that, thank you!" he exclaimed triumphantly.
As the crowd on their side of the trench grew smaller, Ochako's lip-biting grew correspondingly more frantic.
"If... If I float really hard, maybe I could get to the other side?" she said, and immediately turned a little rosy. "Sorry... that sounds stupid-"
Izuku's eyes widened. "No, Uraraka, listen!" he said, and very nearly grabbed her hand in joy. "Let's do this smarter and harder instead of just harder, okay?"
Ochako blinked. "How?"
"Can you control our weight on the fly?"
"Umm..." Ochako bit her lip. "Never did that before, but I can try?"
Izuku nodded. "That's good enough!"
Then he paused and turned the idea in his head again; it sounded less like a plan and more like folly the harder he thought. But it was the best he could come up with under the time pressure.
"Listen, I... I will throw us!"
Ochako's reaction was entirely expected: Eyes dilating and jaws agape. "Eeeeh?"
"R-relax!" Izuku waved his hands about. "I mean... well, exactly what I said! We'll tie ourselves to something that can be easily thrown. You'll keep our weight down, and then..." He looked her in the eyes. "I'm pretty sure I can do a good job slinging stuff; it's landing that's a problem-"
The girl's blinking intensified. "Well, where are we getting that string and something to throw?"
Izuku turned towards the ponytailed girl who'd created that step-ladder just now. "I've got a pretty good idea where."
Fifteen seconds and an awkward question later, Izuku and Ochako found themselves the proud owner of a tailor-made throwing-spear to which a twenty-feet length of rope was tied.
"This what you need?" she said.
"Perfect!" said Izuku. "Thanks! Uh..."
"Yaoyorozu Momo," she said. "And you're welcome!"
Izuku only nodded, and proceeded to tie the length of rope around his waist. This is not stupid, he told himself.
"Hold tight, Uraraka," he said as the girl wrapped her arm around his neck. Izuku's feet at once lost nearly every sensation of having ever had weight; the sensation spread through his body, and he could feel himself lightening, as if only a tenth of his mass remained. "Ready?"
"Whenever you are!" said Uraraka with a wink; her arms squeezing harder around Izuku than he thought she was able to.
He took aim at one of the columns in the distance. His finger flashed green for a blink of an eye, and sent the spear flying. "Now!"
The force of momentum was an awesome and uncontrollable thing. In a blink they were flying through the air like a bullet over the purple-filled trench... and not stopping at all.
It was just like Izuku thought: Taking off was easy, landing wasn't. They were flying like a bullet, flung forward with reckless abandon, fast, fast, too fast.
Izuku's brain was only operating on an instinctive level now. "N-now, Uraraka!" he cried, his voice higher and shriller than he thought he was capable of.
"R-release!"
At once Izuku felt weight on his body again, and their flight trajectory commensurately changed – now they'd slowed down so dramatically, and were dropping at a greater-than-sixty-degrees angle towards the ground.
If Izuku had been a ball, he would have bounced and bounced and bounced. An "Ooof!" escaped his lips, followed by Ochako's "Ow!". The two rolled on the ground, cushioning each other (a remarkable and entirely instinctive thing), until they skidded to a stop in a heap, only missing a rock-hard pillar by a couple inches.
If it had been any other time, having his limbs tangled with a girl's would have been the peak of Izuku's embarrassment. Fortunately for them both, nobody was quite paying attention about the getting into a compromising position part very much, including the two daring flyers themselves. With some effort and a couple "ouch" to spare, Izuku pulled to his leg; there was a biting pain in his knee like he'd broken skin, and his left elbow didn't feel exactly like itself either.
But he was moving and that was enough to one, help Ochako up, and two, complete his share of the test.
"You alright, Uraraka?"
"Y-yeah," she said. "J-just a bit u-unwell ov-over he-"
She barely managed to stagger to the side of the pillar, and hurled around the corner.
"Hey guys!" he cried. "This is for anyone who needs it!" He hurled it to the other side of the divide.
Back on said other side, Yaoyorozu and that boy with electric blond hair was working out something of an agreement. She made what looked like a massive suction fan connected to a huge rubber bag. He smiled, and sent an accordingly massive bolt of pure electrical power at it. The fan roared to life, and in thirty seconds flat the purple smog had faded for the most part as the bag filled up.
Now only tiny wisps of violets rose from the cracks, their color much less bright and deep now. The rest of the student body who couldn't fly or jump high now began leaping down the trench and running to the other end, starting from Iida, holding Izuku's spear in one hand. Yaoyorozu was the last of them, and only because she was making a sort of hook-ladder en-masse.
That's right, the test isn't over yet.
"The targets," Izuku said, and threw a glance at the shiny things hanging all over the place.
Jutting from the ground were ten solid square pillar arranged in a circle surrounding the round tower where Present Mic stood; the shortest towering at least a dozen meters above the class, the tallest twice as high. At a squint, each tower seemed to have two 'targets' hung from its top on opposite sides, gleaming in the sunlight as if challenging the new batch of would-be heroes.
Ochako staggered to her feet, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. She rubbed her temple, and now there was a shine in her eyes as if everything was perfectly fine and dandy now. "Alright, we made it!" she exclaimed, though her voice betrayed no small amount of exhaustion still. "This should be easy enough~"
Apparently Kacchan had thought the same: With a toothy, smirky grin he blasted at the ground, propelling himself all the way to the highest target in range.
They both found out in short order that Present Mic was there for a reason.
"OOOH YEAH, TRY HARDER BOYS AND GIRLS!"
Kacchan's normally very loud "WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?" was drowned out by the resulting sound-wave; it blasted Kacchan right out of the sky like a fly-swatter.
Izuku's head rang like a bell. So... this is the power of the pros?
The only good thing to come of that spectacle was that thanks to Kacchan the ground was now littered with bits and pieces of debris. And when there was debris, there was ammunition.
He picked up a piece of concrete and hurled it at the nearest target. Hardly had it even glanced the surface when Present Mic's next sound-wave batted it off like laser off a deflector shield..
"Need more power, kero." remarked the frog-girl, staggering about, hands clutching her ears. She, too, had also been knocked off the wall for the fourth time, and was winding up for a fifth attempt.
Not everyone was unsuccessful, however. Red-and-white, seemingly meditating all this while, now opened his eyes wide; he stared at the second tallest column like it was an enemy; and with a wave of his arm encased the forty meters of concrete in fifty meters of ice, target and all. The spectacle succeeded in three things: completing the task requirement, wowing everyone but Kacchan, and making the latter even angrier if it was possible.
"WOW! SPECTACULAR PERFORMANCE AND SPLENDID SPECTACLE, TODOROKI!"
"Don't steal my thunder, half-and-half bastard!" he shouted, and once again launched himself upward. He came a little closer this time, and in fact had almost touched one finger on the target when the next sound wave flung him half a dozen meters away.
For a few seconds Izuku was just standing there, thinking, thinking, thinking. Present Mic was projecting a truly omnidirectional ripple of sound all about him, but only in short intervals: he was human after all, and couldn't keep shouting for very long at a time if he was to keep at it till the end of the test, now could he?
Briefly Izuku considered trying for a lower-hung target. But then he decided against it: One For All could help him reach the highest target if he only extended himself a bit. Many of his classmates were ill-equipped to even touch the ones hung lowest.
Izuku closed his eyes. He couldn't let himself be expelled on day one... but he'd try to keep his new classmates from that same fate if he could.
Top one, that is. And there's only one way to offset for my poor eyesight...
"Hey, Uraraka," Izuku said, his hand touching his uniform shoulder. "Would it be a bad idea if I tore my P.E. uniform on the very first day?"
"W-why?"
"Because-" He grabbed his own sleeve and gave it a mighty tug. "-I need a sling!"
The sleeve came off with a loud rip that must have drawn more than one pair of eyes at him, because Izuku felt like the back of his neck was on fire. He thought he heard something sounding roughly like "Eww, exhibitionist!" (or was it "Nudist"?) in a squeaky voice from behind, too.
He reached out for the nearest pile of rubble and fished out a dozen broken shards, each fitting well into his palm. He whirled around, and aimed for the bull's eye on top of the one pillar nobody was yet going for. He spun his whole body...
It's just an exercise, right?
… and let go.
Dull pain shot through his arm as a buckshot's worth of concrete shards was sent hurling at the target's general direction. The pellets spread out across the whole breadth of the pillar.
"WOW LOOK AT THAT, AN IMPROVISED WEAPON! I don't recommend destroying uniforms though!"
The sound-wave didn't come in time to stop all of the projectiles. It knocked the weaker and smaller shots off the air; the bigger, faster and more weighty ones it could not. One of the shards his the target squarely in the middle, punching through it and nailed it solid into the pillar behind. No matter how Izuku looked at it, that target was as good as 'destroyed'.
Present Mic seemed to agree. "AND MIDORIYA IS DONE!"
Izuku grimaced and sat down on the cold stone floor, clutching his shoulder. It was the closest he could come to his arm's limit without breaking it.
But he wasn't done done yet: There were still a few of his classmates who weren't getting any closer to their target. Shouldn't he help them with their share of the work?
But that is academic dishonesty! Cried a part of him.
Well this is an exercise in teamwork! Reasoned another part.
Besides are you going to just see people getting expelled on day one without doing anything to help?
Besides besides didn't other people help you get so far too? Wouldn't it be fair to repay them somehow? Uraraka, at least?
The blood rushing to his cheek at the last thought told Izuku he was at least blushing slightly. It also told him that the deal was sealed. He bit his lip, eked out a hard smile like All Might was wont to, and picked up several more concrete shards. He waited until after Present Mic's next shout (which happened to be "AT LONG LAST, BAKUGOU! SIXTH TIME'S THE CHARM!") and released the buckshot as best as he could at the lowest target in sight – aiming specifically for the suspension cord. I just need to bring it down, right?
It was halfway successful: The cord did break and the target did fall, but a glancing blow had left a nasty-looking dent on the plate. Izuku rushed to collect the target, and then hurled it towards Ochako.
"Uraraka!" he shouted. "That's yours!"
The moment Ochako's finger touched the plate, Present Mic went booming again. "OH HEY, GENTLEMANLY BEHAVIOR IS STILL IN VOGUE, EH? URARAKA, DONE!" he shouted, and Izuku found himself both blushing and so, so much more motivated now.
In fact, he was already in the middle of another swing when suddenly his arm felt weak. The back of his head was burning, like someone's gaze was drilling into it, deeper and more savagely than he was ever used to. His next release was effortlessly blocked by Present Mic's "OH YEAH, THREE CHEERS FOR ASUI! CONGRATU-WHOOPING-LATIONS!"
The next couple minutes passed by in a blur. Izuku did get an eyeful of what everyone else in his class could do: apparently his idea of shooting down the target got a couple copiers too. The most peculiar came in the form of a very big swallow flying through Present Mic's shouting like a fighter jet dodging AA autocannon fire. It landed on a target, and pecked and pecked away at the suspension cord until it came undone.
Izuku couldn't recall how the event exactly ended, except that he was now standing in a line with his classmates, his ears ringing, his body aching, his arms hung limply at his side. Mr. Aizawa was surveying the rank now. Maybe it was just Izuku, but he could swear his scowl had faded considerably.
"Not too shabby, the lot of you," he said. "Still a lot of work to be done for sure, but we can work with that shall we?"
There were a few, indecisive "Yes, sir," around Izuku, both male and female.
"Now you must be agreed about the expulsion I promised," Mr. Aizawa said; and Izuku thought he could feel a shadow of fear and disappointment washing over the crowd. "I regret to inform you that... there will be no expulsion."
The chorus of "Eh?" and "What?" was so loud Midoriya's eardrum nearly burst – until Mr. Aizawa blew his whistle. For once, Izuku welcomed the commotion with open arms.
"But that doesn't mean you have all lived up to our expectation. The following students shall stay behind after class for a chat – consider this your orientation of a sort." He began ticking a list on his clipboard. "Aoyama. Hagakure." His brow raised quizzically at a mass of animate P.E. Uniform. " Kirishima. Kouta. And-"
His eyes met Izuku's. "Midoriya."
Notes and Fanon:
- The quote "There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other" comes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I like to think HP exists in this universe too.
- Even though this version of the quirk apprehension test was (IMO) less biased than the canon version, it still very heavily favors physical or powerful support quirks: Yaomomo is very easily the 1-A MVP here.
- This is the first chapter where Bilbo doesn't appear at all: The (new and maybe improved) Quirk Apprehension Test takes up so much space and requires such a continuous scene I thought it best not to interject with Middle-Earth material.